518 … 2 days
at Nordens Ark– wonderful guides! Rain leaving us alone!
519 ... All the wonderful opportunities to photograph the wildlife at Nordens Ark. Like This and This!
520 … Young enthusiastic and joyful persons enriching both days just by their
presence
521 … Aching feet telling me about endurance
522 … Flashlights
523 … Welcome-home-hugs!
524 … “Becoming
the answer to our prayers” by Clairborn and Wilson-Hartgrove

“When we pray to God asking, *why don’t you do something?’ we hear a gentle
whisper respond, ‘I did do something. I made you.’ Prayer is important. Just as
important is the call to become the answers to our prayers.”

501
… appreciation
502 … Photography – again – break from routines
503 … Summer-tires on the car
504 … Wild yeast – soon to be delicious bread
505 … a week away from work … widening the horizons
506 … Being part of a group that knows how to be different together
507 … Finding, buying and delivering a secondhand tail coat to one of the sons
508 … Lost things turning up
509 … Long drive, sun all the way, thoughts getting time and space
510 … Film-night with colleagues and friends
511 … Breakfast buffet
512 … Coffee – the tasty way to stay awake
513 … Friends being blessed with a pregnancy
514 … Studies all done for this term
515 … The joy of now having the choice to read ANYTHING
516 … the grace of prayer
517 … Singing praise, with friends, in church

Children
find each other. They don’t care if they speak the same language or not, if the
other child is different from them, or not. They find each other
and they play, talk and share the space they’re in. Yes, they fight. They also
make up.

They have
the basic, unspoken, knowledge ...

... that we are
only the best we can be together!

” … anyone who will
not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

In avoiding all pain and
seeking comfort at all costs, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in
rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our
suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness.” - Rachel Naomi Remen

“There is a stage in a child’s life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began ‘Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.’ This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.” – C. S. Lewis

tisdag 3 april 2012

When there
are TOO many things going on at once (read: Many things, many days, no rest)
and the brain gears in to neutral just hoping for a downhill roll to the finish
line (read: time off) I could use a sign
like this to hold up in front of me now and again …

461 ...
worrying friends making sure
462 … wonderful people on the other end of a worried phone call
463 … Dry roads – especially when in a
hurry
464 … A cup of coffee all alone – much needed quiet time
465 … Gong THROUGH bad times- heading for the other side
466 … “My” bearded two on a weekend at work
467 … laughing until stomach hurts
468 … 1st of April-pranksters
469 … Hearing the calm in a voice over the phone
470 … Sunny but cool hour at the seaside – seashell treasures and granite
471 … tears of sorrow – every tear talking of love